After an accident, it can be complicated to determine legal responsibility for the injury and damage caused. However, the liability often rests on someone who acted negligently or carelessly while on road. It is pretty easy to claim that the person or the business involved in the accident should pay for the injuries but before you reach that point, you have to properly determine who was at fault.
Most personal injury victims seek the help of law firms like Turco Legal, PC so that they can utilize the services and skills of a professional lawyer. Keep reading the concerns of this article to know more about determining liability after an accident.
How to decide legal liability
Majority of the accidents on road occur because someone was careless or, according to law, ‘ negligent’. As for the Thumb Rule, if one person involved in the crash was less careful than another, the less careful person has to pay at least a portion of the damages suffered by the more careful person. Therefore, legal liability for all accidents should be determined through the rules of negligence and one or more of the following rules.
- Comparative negligence
In case the victim of the accident was also negligent or careless, their compensation might be reduced by the percentage of their fault in causing the accident. This rule is applicable in most states of the US.
- Liability of employer for the negligence of an employee
If a person is negligent due to which he causes an accident while working for someone else, that person, or the employer, may be legally liable for the accident. There is a fancy name for this rule, “respondeat superior” which means “let the superior answer.”
- Liability for defective items
In case an accident was caused due to a defective product, both the seller of the product and the manufacturer will be held responsible for the injuries caused. This is even applicable when the injured person is unaware of which one was careless in creating or allowing the defect or how exactly the defect occurred. This is known as a product liability claim.
If you need professional help in dealing with the legal rules that are applicable to your case, you can consider hiring a personal injury lawyer in your locality. An experienced attorney will know how to handle cases like yours and also guide you through the entire process until you receive a favorable outcome.
